There were many moments when acting as caretaker for my grandmother was a huge source of stress and frustration. Then, there were moments that were just hysterical.
My grandmother and I had been to the food store earlier in the week. It was early summer, so there was plenty of fresh fruit to choose from — we brought home a big bag of nectarines, bananas, apples, and more. I remember the nectarines specifically, because I ate one on the drive home. I couldn’t wait!
A few days later, I was browsing through the kitchen cabinets, looking for a snack. Fruit, I thought, would be perfect. Healthy, sweet, quick, and easy. But when I went to the fruit basket… it was empty.
Where had the huge sack of fruit gone?
I asked my grandmother. She said we must have eaten it. I was pretty sure we hadn’t eaten all that fruit in just a few days — we picked up at least five or six pieces of each kind of fruit. I hadn’t eaten any since that nectarine in the car… and I didn’t think my grandmother had eaten it all herself.
The search began. I checked all the cabinets where food is stored — maybe the fruit got put in the wrong place. Nope. I checked the fridge. No luck. I checked the hall closet that serves as a pantry. No fruit there, either.
At some point, my mother happened to stop by and she joined in the hunt. She mentioned that a few weeks before, she had found the bananas put away in the microwave! Alas, the missing fruit wasn’t there. We started checking everywhere and anywhere. I looked all over the porch, twice. The fruit wasn’t in the washer. It wasn’t in the bathroom. It wasn’t in the coat closet or my grandmother’s dresser.
So where the heck was the fruit?
On my third trip to check the porch, I noticed a cardboard box. On top of the box was the twenty pound bag of dog food for Moose and Lally. I hadn’t looked in that box yet.
I moved the dog food and unfolded the top. Inside was a pile of towels. Just to be sure, I pawed through the towels… and I finally found the fruit. When I showed my mom and grandmother the treasure I’d found, we laughed.
At least at first. At some point, my grandmother decided we were laughing at her and got cranky. “You can’t wait until I’m dead!” she yelled at me.
“At least when you’re dead, I’ll be able to find the fruit,” I yelled back. And then we all went back to laughing.